Author: Phoebe Gleeson

I made this recipe because I use 5 ounce bars of soap (Dr. Bronner’s, since you ask) and I had to do the math every time, since the directions I followed used 3 oz.

So here ya go.

5 oz soap
3/4 cup borax
3/4 cup washing soda

3 gal water

Chop soap and put in a big bucket, about 5 gal. Add 1 gal hot water. Let soap dissolve (I usually just let it sit for a day or two). In sep. container add borax and washing soda to 1 gal hot water. (You can do this over the stove if you like.) Stir til it dissolves. Add to soap bucket. Add 1 gal water. Use 1/2 cup per load.

This makes about a hundred loads. Not bad!

ETA: I feel compelled to add that you must use a lid that the kids can’t get off 1. because it would make a terrible mess and 2. because if you use a big bucket, a toddler/baby can drown in it. So, you know, be careful. I keep mine in the garage next to the washer.

Didn’t want anyone to worry.

Thanks for the nice comments. I’m really glad I cut it. My only requirement was “long enough to tuck behind my ears in front.”

It was cut by a local growed-up homeschooler who is now going to hairkut skool to get her license. Thanks, Joon!

Before:

After:

The side view:

I’m starting calorie restriction. It increases lifespan by 30-50% in mammals. My new ticker over there isn’t quite right for my numbers, but it’ll be enough for me to keep track.

I saw a NOVA segment on it a year or so ago, but being pregnant at the time I decided it was definitely not my thing. Now, I have an (almost) eleven month old baby and no plans to get pregnant any time soon, so bring it on! Except don’t because, you know, I won’t eat any cause I’m on 2/3rds my former calories.

I used to hover at about 130 pounds with no thought at all. I know my body can easily get back to that point, and I’ll hover there again. That would give me a BMI of 18.7, which is just on the edge of underweight. Right now I’m on the other edge, at 23.5ish.

I don’t need to live forever. Just as long as I can to take care of Bede.

(I edited it because it sounded morbid before. I guess it still kind of does.)

Editing again: the ticker code is not working how I’d like, so I took it down.

So I’ve been knitting. I can’t say what they are because my kids have been known to read my blog, so yeah, pretty dull there.

I need to finish them up, and today may be the day! I also hope to bake.

Last year we made sugar cookies and decorated them. I think we’ll do that again, it went very well.

The wind is whistling outside, the sky is a uniform grey and it’s a genuinely cold day as well, which we haven’t had many of so far. I confess, I love it.

It reminds me of being small and anticipating Christmas. Everything I despised about school was mitigated in December by the promise of the holidays and the break from classes, and the special things we did in December also broke the monotony of the day-to-day.

Going to religious schools meant that there was no problem with honest-to-goodness religious celebrations, so our month was not watered down into a non-specific non-holiday. The school I attended from 5th through 8th grade fancied itself a little bit progressive, so a multicultural nod was given to pretty much every holiday revolving around the winter solstice. I must say, I think that’s a better way to do it than the common “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach taken in many American public schools these days.

Anyway, I won’t be blogging much but I’ll try to post a few pictures in the next weeks. Also you can catch me on facebook and I’m trying to twitter.

We have mice, or I should say, we have seen evidence of mouse activity. I am very very anti mouse, mostly because they can kill you. Oklahoma is rich with hantavirus loaded mice as we luck out and are the easternmost state for a few species of mouse and the westernmost state for a few other species. We’re a mouse wonderland.

So, as always, my first thought is to live and let live, only somewhere else. We’ve had success with live traps for rats before. We got a little plastic box thing that was supposed to be mouse proof and humane. I was initially skeptical that it would work at all and I was right – the mice were easily able to defeat the trap by turning it upside down. Mice 1 Humans 0.

Round two, the first of the kill traps. We used a good old fashioned snap trap, baited with peanut butter, and met with some signs of success, but no definite deaths. (We have a sprung, but bloodied, trap. Sorry mouse, I really don’t want you to suffer, but I do need you gone. I know you would kill me if I was threatening your babies.) We’ll keep trying that.

And now, round three, the glue trap. Ugh. I feel like that’s so inhumane but frankly I don’t know what else to do. I check it all the time, and as soon as I discover it has caught a mouse I’ll dispatch it posthaste.

Last resort is poison. I don’t want the kids to get into it, and I don’t want the lovely scent of dead mouse permeating my home. I tend to think the whole “go somewhere else to die” thing is wishful thinking.

If anyone has any really great ideas for me please shout out in the comments. We can’t get a cat, our lease prevents it. Although the landlord might wiggle on that, we’ve been here for years…